Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. This is the canonical warning against throwing away working code and rebuilding from scratch, told through Netscape's rewrite... Joel on Software Essay · ~10 min read · Starting Up Things You Should Never Do, Part I Joel Spolsky In 3 answers
2. If your worry is whether the product itself is the problem, the honest signal is the shape of your retention curve, and Balfour... brianbalfour.com Essay · Starting Up The Never Ending Road To Product Market Fit Brian Balfour In 3 answers
3. Most migration writing is either no-code hype or agency sales pitches. This one gives you an actual checklist to run before you... AlterSquare Essay · Starting Up When to Migrate Off Bubble (or Any No-Code Tool): The Decision Framework Huzefa Motiwala In 3 answers
4. This is the canonical explanation of what a reviewer actually means when they flag your inherited code as risky. Fowler frames... martinfowler.com Essay · About a 10 minute read · Starting Up Technical Debt Martin Fowler In 3 answers
5. This is the one principle that answers your worry head on: users spend most of their time on other apps, so they expect yours... Laws of UX Essay · 5 min read · Starting Up Jakob's Law Jon Yablonski (principle by Jakob Nielsen) In 3 answers
6. If you take emails or money from people in India, the DPDP Act is the law your privacy page now has to answer to, and this EY... EY India Article · ~15 min read · Starting Up Decoding the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 EY India In 3 answers
7. If you are a founder or designer writing your own product copy without a UX writer on the team, this is the most practical... Smashing Magazine Article · About a 20 minute read · Starting Up How To Improve Your Microcopy: UX Writing Tips For Non-UX Writers Irina Silyanova In 3 answers
8. Steve Blank is the person who most clearly made the case against planning everything and then unveiling it in one big moment.... steveblank.com Essay · 5 min read · Starting Up No Business Plan Survives First Contact With Customers. 2 Minutes to See Why Steve Blank In 3 answers
9. This is the piece that named the problem you are asking about: the difference between numbers that make you feel good and... The Blog of Tim Ferriss Article · 10 minute read · Starting Up Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics Eric Ries In 3 answers
10. Jeff Wald went bankrupt when his first startup collapsed, then built and sold WorkMarket to ADP, so this is not theory. His... First Round Review Article · About a 15 minute read · Starting Up Founder Exposed: Opening Up About Startup Failures and Vulnerability Jeff Wald In 3 answers
11. If you decide Product Hunt fits your audience, this is the playbook that treats a launch as weeks of prep, not a single day.... Demand Curve Article · Long-form guide, roughly a 20 minute read · Starting Up How to Launch on Product Hunt Nick Costelloe In 3 answers
12. This is the essay that names the exact problem: most online writing blurs together because it is neither personal,... perell.com Essay · Long read · Starting Up The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online David Perell In 3 answers
13. Ben Thompson's framework explains why the sharpest modern businesses give the product away and win by owning the demand side,... Stratechery Essay · Starting Up Aggregation Theory Ben Thompson In 3 answers
14. This is the classic counterweight to the first-timer instinct to price low out of nervousness. McKenzie's core argument is that... Kalzumeus Software Essay · About a 10 minute read · Starting Up You Can Probably Stand To Charge More Patrick McKenzie (patio11) In 3 answers
15. Before you say yes to the custom features nobody else wants, this essay makes you sit with the real risk: one account that pays... Startup Patterns (Medium) Essay · Starting Up The One Big Customer Trap Sam McAfee In 3 answers
16. Most startup books assume you want to raise, hire, and scale, which quietly pressures you to quit early and go big. Jarvis... Penguin Books Book · ~272 pages · Starting Up Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business Paul Jarvis In 3 answers
17. This is the clearest side-by-side we found of the actual menu a bootstrapped founder faces: revenue-based financing, venture... Founderpath Article · 20 min read · Starting Up Non-Dilutive Funding for SaaS Founders: 8 Types Compared Founderpath In 3 answers
18. Written by a pre-seed investor who reads these emails for a living, so it is the six-part anatomy of a cold email that actually... Sterling Road (Medium) Article · 10 min read · Starting Up How to Cold Email an Investor Ash Rust In 3 answers
19. OpenVC runs the platform millions of these emails pass through, so their rules are drawn from data, not opinion: put a... OpenVC Article · 12 min read · Starting Up How to Cold Email Investors (And Actually Get Replies) OpenVC Team In 3 answers
20. This is the source document for the entire SAFE debate, written by YC's CFO who papered thousands of these. It walks the actual... Y Combinator Article · 15 min read · Starting Up Understanding SAFEs and Priced Equity Rounds Kirsty Nathoo In 3 answers
21. This is the actual math you are trading against, straight from the source: $125K for a fixed 7%, plus a $375K uncapped MFN SAFE... Y Combinator Article · 6 min read · Starting Up The Y Combinator Standard Deal Y Combinator In 3 answers
22. This nails the discipline behind the highlight reel: with prospects you share momentum factually without handing over what they... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 20 min read · Starting Up Raising a seed round 101 Lenny Rachitsky with First Round In 3 answers
23. The frame that defuses the fight: on the big decisive calls, tell your investor their job is to be a sparring partner, not the... First Round Review Article · 15 min read · Starting Up You Aren't Getting the Most Out of Your Investors, This is How to Start Paul Arnold In 3 answers
24. Carta administers cap tables for tens of thousands of startups, so this is the canonical reference on how vesting actually... Carta Article · 12 min read · Starting Up Vesting explained: schedules, cliffs, acceleration, and types Carta In 3 answers

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